


Grip Me Tight and Raise Me From IKEA

by bluebeholder



Series: When All Else Is Lost, IKEA Still Remains [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Castiel and Dean Winchester First Meet, Getting Lost Together, How To Train Your Dragon Makes An Appearance, IKEA, M/M, Sam Winchester is a Shipper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 05:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4734737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, Dean lost Sam inside of an IKEA store. He can't find Sam. He can't find an exit. Hell, he can't find his way out of the bedroom department. He's about to give up entirely.</p><p>And then an angel—well, a middle-class businessman—by the name of Castiel arrives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grip Me Tight and Raise Me From IKEA

“Sam! Sammy!”

A woman pushing a cart paused in the ruthless pursuit of a shelving unit. “Did you lose your son?” she asked, concern evident in her face.

Dean turned to look at her, away from the (suspiciously Sam-less) section full of quirky kitchen gear. “No, I lost my little brother.”

He could pretty much see the wheels turning in her head. She squinted suspiciously at him. “…your little brother?”

“He’s twenty-eight,” Dean said with a sigh. "And somehow I lost him."

“Oh. Well, I’m sure you’ll find him,” the woman said. She’d already lost interest in him. She motored off, sprinting to the shelving units to get in a fight with a couple already engaged in mortal combat.

The idiot had to be around here somewhere, Dean thought. He turned and headed off into the hellish depths of IKEA.

Hours later, Sam was still nowhere to be found. Dean had canvassed every department, eaten seventeen meatballs, visited four different bathrooms, and Sam wasn’t picking up his phone. Dean’s own phone was running out of batteries by this point and he couldn’t seem to track down an outlet to charge it. He was getting desperate. This store was HUGE. He couldn’t even find a _window_ , let alone an exit. He’d passed a skylight, about twenty minutes ago, but he couldn’t find that either. 

(They should have written “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here” over the door.)

He ended up in the bedroom section, in a little back corner that was fairly quiet and not overrun by newly-married soon-to-be-divorced couples or high-pitched children. And then he realized that he couldn’t actually figure out how to get out. He was done. There was a nook between a desk and the wall. Dean sat down and scootched back so that he was tucked inside. He tried to call Sam again.

“ _It’s Sam. Leave me a message_ ,” his little brother’s tinny voice said. 

“Son of a bitch!” Dean resisted the urge to throw the phone across the cubicle and lose it amid the stupid Svärta and Norddal bedframes. He leaned back in the nook, pressing his head against the wall. He lifted the phone up so he could see it and stared at the clock, aghast. According to the clock on his phone—which had to be wrong, it simply had to be—he’d been inside IKEA for five straight hours. “Son of a bitch,” Dean repeated.

Suddenly a shadow fell over Dean. “Is everything all right?” someone said. 

Dean looked up and found a face directly over his. He flinched, slamming his elbow against the desk. “OW! Damn it!”

“…is that a no?” the guy asked. His blue eyes were puzzled. He was leaning over the desk to look down at Dean, messy dark hair ignoring the pull of gravity and standing out halo-like around his head. 

“It’s a no,” Dean said. He sank back down into the corner. “’s all okay, though, I’m sure it isn’t the end of the world…”

The man smiled. “Pretend it is. Can I help?”

Dean sighed. “Lost my brother somewhere in this store and apparently five hours in here feels like a month and a half.”

“I know exactly how that feels,” the man said. He reached down and patted Dean’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Do you want some help finding him?”

He stared up at the man. “You do realize that we literally just met, right?”

The man shrugged. “Yes. I don’t see how that matters.”

Dean waited a moment longer, waiting for the man to decide to leave or something, but he never did. Finally, Dean said, “…you know, I actually sorta would like some help tracking him down.” 

“Then let’s get a move on.” The man offered Dean a hand. 

Dean took it and let the man haul him up. “I didn’t catch your name,” Dean said offhandedly as they walked out of the bed section, back into the chaos. 

The man glanced at Dean. “My name is Castiel Novak,” he said. “And you are?”

“Dean. Dean Winchester,” Dean said.

Castiel nodded. “Good to know. And your brother is…”

“Sam,” Dean said. 

Time sped by with Castiel. Dean started calling him Cas after twenty minutes or so. A place like this apparently bred familiarity pretty quickly. They ended up causing a traffic jam by standing in the middle of an aisle debating the merits of various types of wrenches. Cas turned out to be as bad at searching as Dean, eventually giving up any kind of method in favor of just yelling Sam’s name down every other aisle. 

“It’s almost five o’clock,” Cas said, looking in surprise at his watch. “We’ve been searching for three hours.”

“Damn it, Sam,” Dean groaned, sinking down into a convenient beanbag chair on the side of the aisle. The crowds had thinned out. Most people, Dean suspected, were at the café getting food. Or home, like normal people.

Cas sat down on the edge of a table. “He still isn’t answering his phone?”

“No,” Dean said. He stared hopelessly at the black screen. “And my phone’s dead anyway.”

“Could we page him?” Cas asked, eyes lighting up for a moment with inspiration.

Dean shifted in the beanbag, feeling his spine crackle with tension. “Maybe. I don’t know where the help desk is, though." He shrugged. "If you wanna get out of here, don’t worry about it. Sam’s a big boy. It’s not like I think that anything’s happened to him or whatever.”

"Have you considered just getting your car and leaving?" Cas's eyebrows pulled together quizzically.

"Nah, I wouldn't want to abandon him!" Dean forced a laugh and crossed his fingers behind his back.

Cas was quiet for a minute, as if digesting Dean’s words. Then his eyes widened and he stared at Dean as if solving a riddle. “He has your car keys, doesn’t he.”

After a second, Dean muttered, “Yes.”

He felt himself turning red as Cas chuckled. “Then I won’t leave. If all else fails, I can at least give you a ride to your house when the store closes.”

“You’re too nice, man,” Dean said, looking up. 

Cas didn’t answer, just ducked his head and smiled a small quiet smile. 

They kept looking, but Dean was feeling a bit lighter and a bit less like he was going to be trapped in the IKEA circle of hell for the rest of his life. Cas was a funny guy, a little weird, a little dorky. His tie was backwards and his trenchcoat was the worst thing Dean had ever seen, but they were growing on him. 

Dean wondered what Cas thought of him. He caught a glimpse of them sometimes in a mirror as they went past, and they were definitely an odd couple. This nice upper-middle-class man and a guy with a leather jacket and tattoos that curled their way up his neck. People were giving them weird looks, that was for sure. But Cas didn’t seem to mind.

Finally they were back at the doors of the store. “It’s seven o’clock,” Cas said. He was looking a little ragged. “How exactly did your brother manage to disappear?”

“Maybe he left?” Dean suggested. He looked around and nearly leaped into the air with glee. “Holy crap. That is an outlet. I’m going to go charge my phone.”

“I’ll just wait here, then,” Cas said, sinking down to sit on a chair. 

Dean sat down by the outlet and waited for the phone to turn on. In about fifteen minutes he had enough charge to go on—and no messages from Sam, who still wasn’t picking up his phone. When he looked up he realized that Cas had positioned himself so that he could watch How to Train Your Dragon. 

“Move over,” Dean said, standing over Cas.

“No,” Cas said mulishly.

Dean tapped his foot. “Share.”

Cas grumbled and muttered vile deprecations, but he moved over so that Dean could sit down on the chair next to him. They were squished in, but it was comfortable, especially after Dean got his arm over Cas’s shoulders and Cas shifted to put his head on Dean’s shoulder. How to Train Your Dragon was actually really good. Dean had never seen it, but apparently Cas had watched it because he was reciting the lines along with the movie in pitch-perfect accents.

“The store closes in like forty-five minutes,” Dean muttered as the credits rolled. 

“Will you be needing a ride?” Cas showed no inclination to actually move.

Dean shrugged. “I dunno. If you wanna…I mean, it’s gonna be trouble for you. I live a long way out of your way, I bet.”

“It wouldn’t be trouble for me,” Cas said. He moved to get up and Dean pretty much bolted out of his way. “Perhaps we should take one more look around?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. He grinned. “Think we can canvas the entire store in under forty-five minutes?”

Cas rose to his feet and stretched. “Let’s try it.”

As it turned out, they weren’t able to do it. The store was just too big. Too many twists and turns, too many bizarre roundabouts and dead ends, too much of everything. And Cas was fast. He was a runner, definitely, Dean decided, sprinting to catch up to the other man.

“I run marathons for fun,” Cas said with a brilliant smile as Dean panted along. “I don’t think this is anything at all…”

“Shut up and run,” Dean said, but he laughed. Cas grabbed his hand and pulled him along. 

They found their way, eventually, assisted by the security guards and employees, to the doors to the parking garage. The store was closing: just about every car was no longer in the parking lot. Only a few cars—and Dean’s Impala—were sitting there. 

“My car’s still here,” Dean said, pointing. “So where the hell is Sam!?”

Cas peered across the dim lot. “There is someone in the car,” he said.

Dean headed for the car. He could see the figure taking shape dimly inside, sitting in the passenger seat. “Back me up,” he muttered to Cas. The other man was only a pace behind. Dean could feel himself tensing up for a fight, ready to kick that car thief’s ass, when he wrenched open the door of the car and Sam spilled out.

“HOLY SHIT!” Sam shouted, voice echoing through the car garage. His eyes were wide and his hair was a mess. 

“WHAT THE—” Dean started.

“Where have you been!?” Sam demanded, staring up at Dean from the concrete floor. 

“Looking for you, you goddamn moron!” Dean shouted.

Cas tapped his shoulder. “Is this your brother?” he asked.

Dean fumed, crossing his arms and glaring down at Sam. “Yes.”

Sam staggered to his feet. Had he been asleep? “Have you seriously been wandering around IKEA for the last…” Sam glanced down at his watch. “Holy shit, ten hours!?”

“Have you been in the car this whole time?” Dean demanded.

“Uh…yeah,” Sam said. He scuffed his foot across the ground. “My phone died, and I forgot a charger.”

“The first rule of IKEA,” Cas proclaimed gravely, “is to always be prepared.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I think we got that now.” He glared back at Sam. “Did you even buy the damn shelf?”

Sam shook his head gloomily. “They were out.”

“Son of a bitch!” Dean flung his hands up into the air. “That’s it. We’re goin’ home. And never coming back here. Get in the car, Sam.”

“I take it you will not need a ride, then?” Cas asked. 

“Nah, man,” Dean said. He clapped the other man on the shoulder. “Thanks for the help, though. It was actually kinda fun.”

Cas smiled. “Agreed.”

“Um. Who is this?” Sam asked, looking between the two of them. 

“Castiel Novak,” Cas said, holding out his hand. “A pleasure. I’ve heard a lot about you from your brother.”

Sam shook Cas’s hand. “Sam Winchester. Also a pleasure…”

Cas nodded. “I had best be going,” he said stiffly. A silence descended.

“Hey, man,” Dean said to break it, digging his wallet out of his pocket, “go get dinner or something on me for helping out…”

“No, no, no,” Cas said, holding up his hands. “I can’t take your money, Dean.”

Dean shook his head. “I gotta pay you back. You wasted your whole day on me,” he said. 

“It wasn’t a ‘waste’,” Cas said. “Thus, you ‘do not’ need to ‘pay me back.’” His air quotes, Dean noticed, sucked. 

Sam grinned, slinging an arm over Dean’s shoulders. “You know, Castiel,” he said cheerfully, “you could always ask Dean for a favor if you don’t want money. He’s got this thing about paying people back. Take advantage of it.”

Dean’s Meddling Sam Alert went off. There was something fishy here. He didn’t say anything, though. It was totally true.

Cas paused, smiled. “You could pay me back by taking me out for coffee,” he said at last.

“Done,” Dean said, probably too fast. Sam was laughing quietly. 

“Here,” Cas said, and pulled a business card out of his suit pocket. It was upside-down. Dean had to turn it over. There was a phone number on it. “When you’re ready, call this number so we can make the appropriate arrangements.”

Dean slid the card into his wallet. “Got it,” he said, and grinned. This whole shitty day hadn’t actually been shitty after all. 

“Then I’ll see you soon,” Cas said. He looked at Sam. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Winchester.”

“I’m Sam,” Sam said. He grinned. “Thanks for helping out my idiot brother.”

Cas just smiled and walked off to his car. 

Dean and Sam navigated their way successfully out of the parking garage. “So, wait,” Dean said, “let me get this straight. You spent the whole day sleeping in the car while I ran around IKEA with a random dude and then set me up on a date with that same guy?”

“Pretty much, I guess,” Sam said. He laughed. “God, Dean, we’re idiots sometimes.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dean said. He paused at the exit to the garage, watching Cas’s car pull away and disappear into the traffic outside. 

“So, you know, that coffee date.” Sam poked Dean. “Where exactly are you planning to take him?”

Dean shrugged and turned out into traffic, honking at some idiot who didn’t understand the concept of turn signals. “Hadn’t thought about it, really.” He smiled when he thought about Cas. Dude was pretty hot, for a weird dorky little guy. “Where do you think we should go?”

Sam poked Dean again. “You know, IKEA has a coffee shop.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I wish upon you only the best in your journeys to IKEA and beyond.
> 
> Note: Due to time constraints and weird life happenings, I have no immediate plans for a sequel to this fic.


End file.
